


All the Better (to fuck you with)

by lc2l



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Blood, Fighting, Hunting, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lc2l/pseuds/lc2l
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fight and they fuck and in the morning they slink off to lick their wounds.<br/>They clench fists and jaws and wish words were as simple as snarls and howls, as teeth and blood.<br/>They're werewolves and they're Mark-and-Eduardo and fucked up doesn't cover it, but it's a place to start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Better (to fuck you with)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [novembersmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/gifts).



> This was written for Novembersmith's birthday. It is a very condensed version of a fic I nearly wrote for TSNBB with werewolves.  
> Thanks to Isi for beta-ing!

but we can't punch ourselves awake and all I can do  
                is stand on the curb and say _Sorry_  
                                                       _about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.  
_ -Richard Siken, Little Beast 

He meets Eduardo in AEPi. It's one of the smaller, shittier wolf packs on campus with an alpha more keen on perfectly dividing a rabbit into twenty-seven equal portions than working to bring down something with a little fight to it.

Mark's in AEPi because his Mom sent him to Harvard with strict instructions to find a pack _As Soon As Possible_ and then Chris found him cornered in an alley four weeks into term about to be the first lone-wolf casualty of the year.

("Can you pretend to be Jewish?" Chris asked in the tiny coffee shop where he'd ordered a mocha and Mark had snatched a can of mountain dew from the freezer.

"I am Jewish."

Chris beamed. "That's great. Where are you living at the moment?")

So Mark couldn't remember actually agreeing to anything but a few days later Dustin showed up to help him move his things into Chris-and-Dustin's shared suite. Then the next full moon he found himself standing by a shitty bike shed, kicking off his jeans into a locker with the rest of the AEPi Jewish Fraternity Wolf Pack. The pack alpha came over to him with a designed-to-be-ingratiating smile. "It's great to have you with us, Mark."

Mark shrugged as his spine began to curve up under his skin. At least he could stop lying to his Mom now.

Dustin and Chris were both bitten, and neither of them quite understand why Mark never settles properly in AEPi. Dustin still thinks running is the coolest part of being a wolf while Chris meets Mark's stony silences on full moon nights with reasoned arguments, pointing out that if Mark has so many issues he should just challenge Tony and become alpha himself.

Mark has better things to do than play grown-up to a rabble of a wolf pack so he just keeps complaining about their alpha whenever he isn't around and one day a voice behind him says "Oh God, I know. If I spend another moon eating nothing but tiny mouthfuls of rabbit I think I might just go home now."

Which is how Mark meets Eduardo. Eduardo was born a wolf down in Brazil, from a line even more established than Mark's. He should have been in one of the Final clubs based on pedigree but he shows up in AEPi shortly after Mark and mutters something about it not working out when asked what pack he was in before. He doesn't challenge the alpha and take over the pack in order to show all these bitten kids what being a wolf is _supposed_ to be like; but he does stand at the back of pack meetings with Mark to bitch about everything that's being said and that's just as good.

Eduardo _understands_ more than anyone else that being an alpha isn't a choice you make because you want venison. You have to be born to it, you have to stand strong, you have to _know_ you can take a pack and keep them safe.

You have to be able to stand up to anyone and everyone, which counts Eduardo out. Mark's heard him talking to his father and it's definitely more of a 'yes sir, no sir' kind of conversation.

"You have to actually care about people," Eduardo says, pulling two beers out of the fridge and throwing one to Mark. And—yeah—that's pretty much what counts Mark out.

-

They sleep together as wolves and wake up naked and curled up. Mark's big gay freak-out consists of waking up, noticing that Eduardo is hard, remembering the slightly mocking way Eduardo laughs whenever the alpha calls them 'wild' and waking Eduardo with a kiss that's all tongues and teeth.

Eduardo's nails dig into his shoulders and he laughs when he comes from just rutting against Mark's hip. He smells like Mark and his hair is full of twigs and leaves and for the first time Mark looks at someone from Harvard and thinks: _pack._

-

They bring down a deer. Harvard has a whole forest out back—the same way so many cities keep special areas for their local wolf packs—where the stronger packs pay for the privilege to go and fight over game and pack boundaries. The entire forest is smaller than Mark's pack territory back home and Eduardo looks equally as unimpressed when they break in one full moon.

The deer is young and weak and doesn't know the terrain at all—in human form later Mark calls home to tell his Mom that the rumours of big corps shipping game from real forests for the city wolves are completely justified—but there's just the two of them which makes it enough of a victory when they finally bring it down. It tastes stringy and worn out but it's better than rabbit and afterwards he licks blood off Eduardo's muzzle and the entire Porcellion pack finds them and chases them out of the trees.

Maybe Dustin had a point, Mark thinks as they shift back—breathless and naked behind an old bike shed—and Eduardo pins Mark against the corrugated iron to bite into his mouth. Running is pretty awesome.

-

Eduardo is sitting on the sofa playing Mariokart and Mark stands in the doorway for a minute watching him. Eduardo _growls_ every time he dies and occasionally snarls threats at the computer generated caricatures that Mark is pretty sure he'd need to shift to understand. Eduardo's wolf is feral, all animal instincts and desperation, and the line between the wolf and the human is the thinnest Mark has ever seen.

Eduardo's hair is messed up and he still smells of Mark and morning sex and Mark didn't realise he'd made a decision until this moment.

He also realises that the decision was made against the bike sheds three weeks ago. "Join my pack."

Eduardo doesn't pause the game or look up. "I'm in your pack."

"Not AEPi," Mark says, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut. "My pack. _Mine._ "

Eduardo gets it just as his character goes spinning off the ledge and into the sea. He's not looking at that though, his head turned so his eyes are fixed on Mark. His gaze is too intense, always. Like he's only ever a blink away from the wolf. "You don't have a pack, Mark."

Mark shrugs. "I do if you join." It's ridiculous and stupid. There are so many other packs on campus and they all have at least a minor army of kids who got bitten when they were younger and have just started shifting. Hell, its college. People make out in bars and come out with hickeys that turn into fur and claws at the next full moon. There are thirteen final clubs full of wolves who were shifting in the womb and have been shifting since they came out of it.

There are reports of attacks on loners that come in daily. Two wolves isn't so much a pack as an experiment to see who gets killed first.

Eduardo meets Mark's eyes for a long minute then unfolds slowly from the sofa and walks across the carpet. "Okay," he says. "I'm in."

So that's it. Mark's an alpha and Eduardo is his beta and omega and every letter in between.

-

They keep going to the AEPi meetings. It's a total joke, really, because neither of them smell anything like the frat pack anymore but the bitten wolves noses are all too shit to notice and it means they get two whole months before the biggest muscle-heads in the Porcellion track Mark down.

And then it turns out all they want is help with a website. In return they mutter something about 'letting you off for that stunt with the deer' like Mark's been fighting off wolves with his bare fists instead of walking around with Eduardo while all the big bad wolves keep their distance.

-

Facebook sort of takes over their lives after that. Mark takes to shifting in his desk chair, watching code compile through sharp wolf eyes, while Eduardo paces up and down in the main room looking for something to fight.

Sometimes he comes in after Mark and they trash the whole room—leaping on each other. Eduardo catches Mark's shoulder with his teeth, scrapes claws across Mark's flank. They fight on the bed and fuck somewhere near it and wake up breathless and naked and bleeding.

-

When theFacebook goes live, Mark lists himself as 'Relationship status: in a relationship' and 'interested in: boys' and 'pack: Kirkland 2'. It causes a bit of a shit storm with AEPi that ends with Chris and Dustin being thrown out as well.

Eduardo has a long conversation with his father and after hanging up he curls against Mark and explains in whimpers and growls and murmurs of Portuguese that Mark isn't feral enough or Brazillian enough to understand.

But Chris and Dustin both join the pack and then a few weeks later Eduardo goes out for the full moon and next morning brings home Christy and Alice.

They have a screaming argument where Mark shouts that he's not that kind of alpha and he doesn't _need_ this and Eduardo says that he slept which Christy which shuts Mark right up.

Eduardo is more wolf in human form than anyone Mark has ever met. In wolf form, he's wild and feral and the first time Mark woke up with him, he thought he was special.

In human form, Eduardo only sleeps with Mark. Mark pretends like that's enough.

He has to update his pack to 'Kirkland 6'. He starts taking them all out on the full moon instead of staying shut in. The bitten wolves are too loud and uncoordinated to sneak into Harvard's forest so they hunt through the grounds, picking on squirrels and rats.

Eduardo doesn't so much as glance at anyone else when Mark's there.

-

Sean is human. Completely. Eduardo's hackles go up the moment he walks in and don't go down. He doesn't even have hackles in human form, but Mark can feel it and it sets his teeth on edge leaving Christy to carry the conversation and pretend like nothing's wrong.

"There's no game in California," Eduardo says on the way home.

He hates cities. He hates cities and rabbits and claws-on-tarmac. Eduardo's howls always ache with a longing for home and fields and trees. For wild animals living _wild._

Mark knows all these things. He sits in the dark listening to Eduardo breathing in the bed behind him and watches TheFacebook user count slowly rising.

Mark knows all these things but he also knows that Sean is right.

-

Eduardo doesn't go with them to Palo Alto. He got an internship in New York where the forest is half an hour outside the city and three times the size of Mark's pack's territory back home.

They have a screaming fight in human form then a snarling fight in wolf form that ends with Mark limping on three paws and Eduardo shaking blood from a torn ear. The rest of the pack disappear before Eduardo leaps at Mark's wounded side sending them both skidding into a bush where Eduardo fucks him and bites his shoulder and snarls _stay with me stay with me stay with me_.

Mark sends Christy to New York to keep an eye on Eduardo.

("Isn't he your beta?" she asks, as he pushes plane tickets into her hand. "Shouldn't he be keeping an eye on me?"

Mark is too busy balancing the new pack wolves—interns, whatever—Facebook and Sean to work his thoughts into a cohesive reply. It's lucky he has a red vine in his mouth to stop him blurting out something half-thought like, 'I think we're leaving him behind.' Or 'If he's my beta, why isn't he with me?')

In Palo Alto they lock themselves in the house every full moon. The bitten wolves play stupid games to keep them occupied. Mark tries playfighting once but none of the wolves are Eduardo and the intern needs stitches. After that he stays in his room, cooped up and restless, thinking about Eduardo and Christy running through the forests in New York.

-

Mark doesn't know how to handle being jealous all the time. It's too much emotion, too much desperation that it feels like it's leaking out of him and into everyone else. The summer is hot as hell, the house stinks of wet dog, fights break out every couple of days about the most mundane shit and Mark doesn't know what to do about any of it. He wires in and wires in and wires in and when one of the interns comes to tell him she's found a new pack, Mark doesn't blame her in the slightest.

He doesn't know her name but they're back to the Kirkland 7 on Facebook and he's starting to think he should just cut his New York losses and change it to the Kirkland 5 when Eduardo shows up on the doorstep.

They fight. They fight and fuck and Eduardo crashes leaving Mark to lie in his bed with fading red lines across his arm and try to remember a time when they did anything _but_ fight.

He can't remember what they fight about. He can't remember what _this_ fight was about and it only started an hour ago. Something about the airport and the rain that meant Mark's skin is wet where Eduardo's hair shook over it. Something about Sean, probably. Sean who sleeps downstairs and should go somewhere else on full moon nights but doesn't because the wolves are too hot and apathetic to _care._

Mark was just yelling. He can't even remember what just that it wasn't important and Eduardo was snarling and growling back which just made Mark shout louder because _why can't you just speak fucking English_ and _how am I supposed to do anything if you don't talk to me_ and _you are a fucking human being use your fucking words._

But everything Mark shouted boils down to, "Are you sleeping with Christy?" and he doesn't even want to know the answer, so.

-

Eduardo stays for the full moon. His wolf form only has half a right ear which makes Dustin pine and ask about the vicious New York packs.

Mark still favours his left foreleg and his typing speed has dropped by three words a minute but you don't see him angling for sympathy.

Eduardo ignores all the rules about not leaving the house and Mark chases him halfway across the city—under street lamps, across freeways, down back streets and side alleys ignoring the human cries that follow them and the huge posters warning all locals that any wolves out on the street on the full moon will be shot.

They fight in the streets and in the alleys. They run and dodge bullets and knives and tear each other up the same way they always have. They fuck just as the sun begins to rise, biting and touching and snarling as bones break and fur gives way to skin.

Then they're naked in an alley covered in blood and dirt and come, so many miles from home and when Mark points this out Eduardo laughs. Mark had almost forgotten that laugh but now he just remembers waking up the first time and the slow fall into something that might have been love.

Eduardo stands up and stretches out, reaching into a dumpster and somehow pulling out an old hoodie that stinks of feet. There are red lines and old scars latticing across his back, the yellow tint of old bruises on his arms and Mark feels his smile die.

_Are you sleeping with Christy?_ He thinks.

He doesn't say anything out loud and by the evening Eduardo's gone.

-

"It's financially necessary," Thiel says.

"It'll fuck us up later if you don't," Sean says.

"Don't think he'll forgive you," Chris says.

"Yes," says Christy.

-

Mark sends a lawyer to New York with the papers. A stupid human lawyer because Eduardo would smell lies and betrayal on a pack wolf the moment they stepped off the plane.

He gets the call that they're signed right before sunset and doesn't even hesitate before going outside to shift. The streets are cold and empty and he stands in the middle of the street to howl at the moon where it's not hidden by skyscrapers and satellite dishes.

He howls like someone can hear, like New York isn't hundreds of miles away, like he has a whole pack howling along with him.

When a bullet catches his shoulder, he shrinks back into the shadows and runs home. Sean is standing in the hallway shouting something unintelligible and _human_. He's standing there in the middle of Mark's pack, four full-grown adult wolves, confident and assured like the supposedly wild animals are his fucking guard of honour _._

He's human and _weak_ and he goes down so easily.

-

"I found us an office," Sean says a week later. He's still moving carefully, one shoulder bandaged up until the wounds from Mark's claws heal.

Mark sometimes forgets how slowly humans recover. Eduardo would have scarred by now, has scarred before. "Okay."

Sean passes him a file. "There's a wood out back."

-

The wood is a godsend. It means the pack can finally run on a full moon—mostly in circles because the wood is still in Palo Alto and still tiny—and hunt the rabbits and foxes that have set up residence. It means they can breathe in the air and see the moon in the sky and howl without worrying about guns or neighbouring pack wars.

The local buildings are all offices and store fronts that shut up their doors at night. No one expects people to be living there but the attic of the Facebook office is warmer and cosier than the house so the pack move in. They don't have beds but they pile up beanbag chairs and blankets and sleep in a pile on the floor.

It's almost like home. Christy shows up one night with a suitcase of all her things and doesn't say anything when Chris asks why she left New York.

Later she'll tell Mark that Eduardo knows about the papers. Later she'll tell him that he shifted at noon in the middle of the moon's waning cycle and tore up half the apartment with his teeth before leaping out the window and running out of sight. Later she'll tell Mark to be careful.

-

The wood is a godsend because Mark can shut everyone in the office and walk into the clearing to face Eduardo on his own. Eduardo smells of blood and rage and pain and _pack_ and Mark doesn't know how to apologise but he knows how to fight.

There's shouting and snarling then fists and knees and elbows and Mark doesn't know what to do what Eduardo punches him in the face other than punch him right back. Eduardo is screaming, "I trusted you, you asshole, you dick, you complete fucking—" and every other word is a snarl or a growl or his soft human teeth digging into Mark's hand when Mark tries to hold him still.

Mark isn't shouting anything he's focused on scratching and punching at every bit of Eduardo he can reach. He's focused on covering Eduardo with his scent from head to toe and screaming _mine mine mine mine_ in his head where no one can hear.

Mark didn't even realise it was a full moon but he knows it must have been intentional when the sun sets and Eduardo ¬smiles _,_ his teeth stretching and elongating slowly like this is Hollywood and he wants to make a scene.

Mark always thought his wolf was a lot like his human. They're both analytical, they both fight for what they want and not much else.

Eduardo's wolf is _wild._ Eduardo's wolf is what you get when you force a wild animal to play house all its adolescence then send it out to university without a care. Eduardo's wolf is a beast that fell out of its cage and wants to watch the world burn.

They fight and they fuck and they fight some more because what else has their relationship ever been. Eduardo snarls and growls and Mark howls and somewhere behind concrete walls he can feel the rest of the pack cowering away from the windows and curling up together out of sight. Eduardo's wolf has blood on its snout and Mark licks it off to find it's his blood mixed with Eduardo's blood and Eduardo throws him off.

Eduardo doesn't lick, he doesn't pause. He throws Mark to the ground and goes after him, tearing at Mark's flank and at his jaw and Mark scratches claws across Eduardo's face and slams his back feet into Eduardo's chest. There's fur flying and Eduardo throws Mark down again like it's easy, like Mark weighs nothing. Eduardo has spent the last six months hunting in New York while Mark lay in his room in Palo Alto getting _soft._

It still somehow comes as a surprise when Eduardo slams him into the ground for the third time and he doesn't get up. He should, he needs to, but his chest is tight and his legs paw limply at the air as Eduardo staggers back across to him—tongue lolling out of his mouth and blood dripping from his muzzle to the ground.

He leans forward to press his teeth against Mark's neck. Mark lies very still and knows that if he bites down—if he bites down.

Eduardo pulls back with a snarl and slashes his claws across Mark's side before turning and running. The walls were built high enough to keep all other packs out but Eduardo pushes off his hide legs, catches the branch of a tree for extra thrust and powers right over the top and out of sight.

Mark's head falls limply back against the ground.

-

The letter from Eduardo's lawyer comes three months later. Mark has lines of red scars all over his skin and a faint line of dots like tooth marks around his throat.

"He doesn't have a case," Sean says, but he smells hesitant the way Sean is never supposed to. "It was just money, we'll pay him back or something. I'll send him a cheque and then he'll have no claim on Facebook." He glances over at where Chris is sitting with a whole stack of library books with titles like 'Corporate Law for Dummies'. "Right?"

Mark doesn't know and doesn't care. He touches the scars around his throat. Even if Eduardo can't have Facebook, he could have the pack. He's rightfully alpha, by all laws of the wild. No one says anything about it, but Mark can feel control slipping away. He can tell by the way they look at him out of the corner of their eye, the way Sean has pushed himself into the role of 'beta' when he's still completely human.

Eduardo's pack. He is pack and Mark doesn't care, he can be alpha or beta or anything but he's pack and he should just come home. They fight all the time but that's _them_ and that's normal and if he can just see Eduardo again, if he can just remind himself of his pack's scent on Eduardo's fur then things will work out. They have to.

-

The lawyer's office is cool white walls and a sleek glass table that stinks of bleach and 'lemon scented' chemicals that don't smell anything like. Mark is itching in his own skin, it's the day of the full moon and he's wondering again if Eduardo planned it like this. Planned this whole meeting with Mark's senses on red alert and Mark waiting desperately until the sun went down and they're just two wolves and nothing's _complicated._

Eduardo comes in wearing his crisp suit with his lawyers and he smells unfamiliar like _someone else_ and _other packs_ and _dangerous_ and Mark has all these fight-or-flight instincts burning inside him but his brain is staring at Eduardo and can't seem to make the smells stick, like he believes there must be some other wolf hiding in Eduardo's hair because— _no._

Because Eduardo is _pack._ Eduardo is _Mark's._

Eduardo meets Mark's eyes as the door swings shut, sending his scent powering towards Mark like a wave and there's a slight smirk on his lips that says he _knows._

Mark has to push past him to get out the door and down the hall to the bathroom. He throws up three times but can't get the taste out of his nose, out of his throat. He can't forget what it was like to look into Eduardo's face and smell a claim by someone else.

"Why so surprised," Eduardo says, and Mark didn't even realise he'd come in because he smells like _stranger_. "You forced me out."

And there's so much Mark wants to say to that. He wants to say that he didn't, he forced Eduardo out of Facebook but Facebook wasn't the same thing as the pack, they just happened at the same time. He wants to say there's no pack without Eduardo because wasn't that the point of it all? Mark and Eduardo doing this together. Being together.

If Eduardo's in someone else's pack, Mark might as well be back hunting rabbits with AEPi.

-

They're not supposed to see each other outside of the depositions, but there's not a lot of woodland near the hotel they're both staying at. Eduardo's wolf has a line of scars across his nose and half of one ear missing. Mark's has thick bands of scar tissue down its flank and walks with a pronounced limp to avoid putting weight on his front right leg.

-

They fight and they fuck and Mark licks his own blood off Eduardo's muzzle in the night and licks blood out of Eduardo's mouth in the morning when they're lying on the forest floor naked like nothing's ever changed.

Mark covers Eduardo with his scent and Eduardo covers Mark with his until both packs are obliterated and they just smell of blood and sweat and them and _us._

"Join my pack," Eduardo says and he doesn't mean 'my new New York pack' or 'our old Harvard pack' or 'the pack I grew up in.'

"You don't have a pack," Mark says, because this is what they do. They fight and fuck and run in circles of history repeating.

Eduardo smiles a wicked smile, his fangs pronounced in a human jaw. Dustin used to call him the Cheshire Cat, the way his teeth were always the first thing to come and the last thing to go. "I do if you join."

One day one of them will claw too deep or bite too hard. One day Mark will go home to Palo Alto and find his pack alphaless and falling apart. One day they'll walk too deep into some other pack's forest and they won't run fast enough. Between them they have enough vices to tear down a city and one day it'll be enough that they don't wake up.

Two wolves isn't so much a pack as an experiment to see who gets killed first. Mark-and-Eduardo isn't so much a pack as an experiment to see how long before they kill each other.

Mark threads his fingers through Eduardo's hair and kisses the Cheshire smile that cuts his lips, stings his tongue and tastes of blood. "Okay," he says. "I'm in."


End file.
